DSC Characterisation of cocoa butter polymorphs

Cocoa butter polymorphs were identified by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) which is a simple and economic technique compared to X-ray diffraction or similar techniques. The principal aim was to provide the cocoa butter processing industry with a simple method to identify unambiguously the polymorphic form obtained during cooling of chocolate. DSC experiments were carried out on a set of cocoa butter samples to study crystallization as a function of cooling rate. Results were compared to literature X-ray diffraction data elaborating two polymorph identification diagrams, found to be as reliable as the X-ray diffraction ones.